


missing piece

by artenon



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Follows BBS light novel canon, Gen, Sharing a Body, Spoilers - Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 20:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17946884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artenon/pseuds/artenon
Summary: Vanitas needs Ven. Maybe Ven needs Vanitas too.





	missing piece

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to the vanven fix-it my heart desired :^)
> 
> set during the series of battles in the keyblade graveyard, except sora's not there (presumably he is partaking in another battle at the moment) and i split vanitas and terranort up because i COULD NOT handle the whole thing in the game with boss A standing to the side for three minutes will boss B had a heartfelt death scene. also, i am following the light novel canon for vanitas's characterization and motivations!!
> 
> thanks a bunch, as always, to [cai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle) and [sarah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurea) for the beta!

Ven rolled out of the way as dark bolts of energy impacted the ground behind him, sending up sprays of dust and rock.

A _fshh_ above him—Ven sprang to his feet as Vanitas dove at him from midair. There was no time to dodge, so Ven summoned his Keyblade to parry Vanitas’s. Their blades ground against each other, and Ven brought his other hand up to brace against his Keyblade as Vanitas fell in close with the bend of his arm, featureless helmet right up in Ven’s face. Then he disappeared with another _fssh_ of energy and materialized several feet away.

Ven dismissed his Keyblade. He breathed heavily, sweat rolling down the sides of his face. He shifted his weight, staying light on his feet and ready to dodge when Vanitas struck again.

Vanitas didn’t attack right away. He lowered his Keyblade to his side, but Ven could see his grip tighten around the hilt by the way the angle of the blade jumped.

“Why won’t you fight back?” Vanitas spat each word out, all biting frustration.

Ven didn’t respond right away. Back in the Land of Departure, Aqua’s heart had called to his, pulled him from the cobwebs of his slumber in a desperate plea, and he’d thrown himself at Vanitas on instinct. His motivations then were simple: Aqua was in danger and he had to protect her.

Now was different. Now he could only think of the last time they’d fought, really fought. It’d been in this very graveyard, the same barren land, the same dusty heat. To him, it felt like it’d just happened a few days ago. Not the ten years that had actually passed.

The memory was crystallized: their battle, their union. They’d almost forged the χ-blade. Ven— _Vanitas_ had hurt his friends.

Ven wasn’t going to let that happen again.

But how could he stop him, if not by fighting?

“Why are you even helping Xehanort?” Ven said. “You know he’s just using you.”

“Who cares?” Vanitas said. “I just followed him ‘cause I knew it was the only way to find you.”

“But—”

“I couldn’t care less about his light-darkness clashingχ-blades _whatever_.” Vanitas’s voice drawled with derision, but his demeanor shifted when he pointed his Keyblade at Ven and said, dark and serious, “I just need you.”

Ven took a step back and drew a sharp breath in through his mouth. Hot anxiety seized his stomach.

Not again. He couldn’t let it happen again.

“We joined before,” Ven said. “I defeated you. So how are you here now?”

And if Vanitas would just keep coming back, how could Ven ever hope to stop him?

Vanitas took slow steps forward. “We joined, but our union was incomplete. In the end, you forced me out. From then I existed as nothing more than remnant darkness, until the Unversed could collect enough negative energy to reconstruct my body.” He stopped and drew his Keyblade back, raising his other hand toward Ven. “But this time I will complete our union.”

Ven raised his arms defensively but held off on calling his Keyblade.

“Why fight it?” Vanitas said. “You should want this too. After all, I am your missing piece.”

“No! I’m—I’m whole.”

Ven looked down at his palms, dirty and a little scuffed up from dodging and rolling out of the way of Vanitas’s attacks. He remembered what Sora and the others had told him about Roxas. Lea said Roxas looked just like him, so that was going to be… interesting, but the salient point was that even though Roxas had been born from Sora’s heart—and, he supposed, partially from Ven’s as well—he’d become his own person.

Maybe he and Vanitas had started as two halves of the same whole, but looking at him now—the way he carried himself, the way he spoke—there was no way he could still be a part of Ven, right?

“You’re… your own person,” Ven said. “We don’t have to fight.”

Vanitas laughed. Darkness pooled at his feet and coalesced into Flood Unversed, with their sleek blue bodies and glittering red eyes. “It’s not that simple.”

The Unversed skittered towards Ven. He hesitated as they closed the distance, but Vanitas hadn’t moved at all and Ven had fought plenty of Unversed before, so he called his Keyblade and sliced through the first one that leaped at him. From there, he dashed to the next Unversed, and the next, taking them down one by one. He looked up as he felled the final Unversed, in time to see Vanitas flinch, one hand pressed to his mask.

“Hold on,” Ven said. “Is this—does killing them hurt you?”

Vanitas’s laugh, this time, dripped with bitterness. More Flood Unversed danced around his feet. He bowed his head for a moment, still clutching his mask, then raised it again and dropped his hand.

“And why not? You know they come from me, and you know they return to me. Why shouldn’t I feel it when you strike them down?”

“I didn’t—I didn’t know,” Ven said.

“Oh, please,” Vanitas said. “As if you’d care!”

He warped, and before Ven could think to jump out of the way, Vanitas appeared before him and struck him across the chest with his Keyblade.

Ven cried out as he flew backwards. He landed heavily on his back, and Vanitas strode up to him and pointed his Keyblade down at his chest. The Unversed roved back and forth nearby, but didn’t move to strike him.

“Now stand up and fight. It’s the only way either of us will ever be complete again. You need me, Ventus, just as I need you.”

“I don’t need you,” Ven said. “My heart is whole, and it’s mine. Sora gave me a second chance.” He looked desperately up at Vanitas. The ground scorched beneath his skin. “You can have one, too.”

“No.” Vanitas jerked back. “No. You don’t get it!”

The words dissolved into a frustrated scream as Vanitas whipped around and struck down the Unversed around him. He screamed again as they dissipated, and more sprang up to replace them. He struck those down, too, and again more spawned, immediately turning on Vanitas as they did.

Ven scrambled backwards and stood, heart pounding, stomach in knots, unsure what to do or what was even happening as Vanitas screamed and fought and summoned more and more Unversed.

When Vanitas’s screams started to sound more like sobs, Ven couldn’t take it anymore.

“Vanitas! Stop!”

Vanitas froze. The Unversed stopped, too.

Slowly, Vanitas turned to him, and the face of his mask melted away to reveal his tear-stained face and hysterical grin.

“Don’t you see?” His voice cracked over the words. “There is no second chance for me, not like you. This body is inhuman and this—” He gestured to his chest. “—heart, if that’s really what it is, it can never be more than just this. As long as I’m without you.

“Think about it: my body faded away into near nothingness, and I still came back. I’m a monster, Ventus. Sometimes I think—”

He stopped, and the grin dropped from his face. He stared at the Unversed still prowling around on the ground.

Ven took half a step forward. “You think what?”

“Maybe I’d rather lose myself rejoining you than go on like this,” Vanitas said, almost too quietly for Ven to hear.

“Oh,” Ven whispered.

“But I don’t want that,” Vanitas said. “I want—I don’t know what I want. Fuck!”

He swung his Keyblade down.

“Vanitas!”

Vanitas stopped, Keyblade hovering just above a quivering Unversed. He stood in tense silence for a moment, then raised his Keyblade and slammed it down onto the Unversed, screaming in pain as it disintegrated.

Vanitas hurled his Keyblade. It skidded across the ground and disappeared. Vanitas stared at the spot it had vanished. “He promised me salvation.”

“Who promised?” Ven realized how stupid the question was as soon as he said it.

Who else but Xehanort?

Ven approached Vanitas, keeping his movements slow and careful, but none of the Unversed moved against him. He stopped in front of Vanitas and reached a hand out to touch his arm.

The moment he made contact, a jolt thrummed through his body, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. He dropped his hand.

Vanitas looked up at him. “Your heart longs for its missing piece,” he said. Not goading this time; his voice was dull, even resigned.

But maybe he was right. It scared Ven to think that, but how else could he describe that shock except as his heart pulling towards Vanitas’s? Ven looked into Vanitas’s eyes and wondered if he’d felt the same tug.

Now that they were so close, standing still with no distraction or adrenaline from combat and only the sound of their quiet exhales, the pull was seductive.

Vanitas had come from Ven in the first place. If he wanted to come back, if some part of Ven wanted him back, would it really be so terrible to just… accept it?

He tried the thought out loud. “Maybe we can coexist.”

Vanitas’s face twisted. “Weren’t you listeni—”

“No, I know,” Ven said. “I mean maybe we can coexist… here.” He lifted his hands to his chest, one resting atop the other. “No fighting for control. Just both of us, together.”

Vanitas stared at him. “There’s no way that will work.”

“Why not? I thought you said we would complete each other.”

“Because… because…”

“Vanitas,” Ven said.

He smiled, over the stutter of fear in his heart. He was scared, of course he was. What would happen? Would one consciousness win out after all, the other left a prisoner in his own mind? Or would they meld into one being again—and if so, how much of _Ventus_ and _Vanitas_ would remain? He didn’t know. And yet, this return felt… right.

“Trust me,” he said.

Vanitas bit his lip. He looked like he might cry again, but then he nodded, and Ven lifted his hands. Slowly, Vanitas mirrored the movement and pressed his palms against Ven’s. Another jolt ran through him, but it didn’t squeeze his lungs like last time. It was almost warm.

Inviting.

Ven slipped his fingers in the spaces between Vanitas’s. A soft light surrounded Vanitas’s body and he started to fade away. Vanitas squeezed Ven’s hands, eyes widening fractionally.

Ven smiled encouragingly. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Vanitas didn’t say anything, but his grip on Ven loosened, and he exhaled and closed his eyes. Ven shut his eyes too. He breathed deep and slow and a moment later his fists closed around empty air.

And it was _there_ , all in his heart and mind, all of Vanitas’s memories and experiences since they’d been separated sliding into place, as vividly as if they were his own.

He remembered the pain of being apart. He remembered watching, _feeling_ the Unversed slither out of his skin, striking them down in fear and feeling their agony as he did. The shame and disgust that brought on more Unversed, the pain that brought on more Unversed, the never-ending cycle of suffering, of killing Unversed and spawning more and killing them and spawning more—until Xehanort promised him salvation.

Fight Ventus. Forge the χ-blade. It was the only way.

Ven opened his eyes. Vanitas was gone.

**I’m here.**

The voice—he didn’t hear it as such, but he felt the words imprinted in his consciousness all the same. Softer-edged, a little more uncertain than Ven was used to it being, but still familiar. Somehow, it carried the same cadence.

 _Vanitas?_ he probed silently.

**Yeah.**

Ven lifted his hands, palms up—Ven? Vanitas? It didn’t feel like a struggle for control, but the movement didn’t feel quite like him alone.

They looked down at their hands, flexed their fingers and curled them into fists. They dropped their arms back to their sides and looked forward.

**This is…**

**__**_Weird?_ Ven thought.

**Yeah.**

They dropped into a battle stance and paced forward. They threw punches and kicks, slashed an imaginary weapon, dodged and weaved invisible enemies.

They moved as one, synchronized in a way Ven couldn’t explain. Sometimes one or the other seemed to _suggest_ a motion, a mental nudge that was processed too quickly to capture in words.

Because there were no words. They just _were_.

They came to a stop, breathing out through their mouth from the exertion, and wiped away the sweat trickling down their forehead. Vanitas wanted to try something Ven didn’t understand. When their muscles tensed, Ven felt a bit more like an outsider looking into the motions of his own body.

Nothing happened, but something almost giddy bubbled up in Vanitas’s consciousness, and he said, **No more Unversed.**

Ven ached for him.

_I didn’t know you were hurting so much. I’m sorry._

The giddiness stamped out into neutrality.

**Meh. I got used to it.**

_Doesn’t mean it was okay, or wasn’t hard._

**Alright, alright. If I have to listen to any more of this I might gag, so let’s just go and help your friends, okay?**

_Really?_ Ven couldn’t hide his surprise. _You’re not gonna fight me on this?_

There was an impression of a laugh.

**Well, I’m not exactly keen on Xehanort destroying the worlds right after I finally got my body back, so I _guess_ we can table our discussion of what we’re doing next until that’s taken care of.**

Ven laughed too. Still, maybe that would be enough for now. This would take a lot of discussion and a lot of getting used to, but there were bigger things right now. And his friends _were_ still his priority.

_Okay. Let’s go._

They ran down the corridor of the labyrinth, following the twists and turns of the path until they reached the next open area. Aqua was fighting Terra—or Xehanort possessing Terra’s body. She looked exhausted but was putting up a good fight, neither side gaining any ground. As they rushed forward join the battle, Ven couldn’t suppress the fear that there was nothing left of Terra to save. After all, how long had he been held under Xehanort’s control?

**I wouldn’t worry. Light has a way of sticking around. Persistent bastard.**

Ven gave a mental snort, but he couldn’t deny the wash of relief. _Right_ , he said. _Thanks._

They smiled, and when they called their weapon, a Keyblade appeared in each hand.

“Let’s do this,” they said.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! you can find my vanitas-loving ass over at [twitter](https://twitter.com/qorktree) :^)


End file.
